Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Who Ya Got: Frosh vs. the Field?

At the beginning of the college basketball season, everyone recognized that this was a spectacular freshman class -- by the end of the season, it was the... wait for it...:

Best. Freshman Class. Ever.

Very quickly, I started claiming that if you gave me the freshman class, I'd give you your pick of sophs, juniors and seniors... and my squad would beat yours. (In a symbolic move, today I named Kevin Love my college basketball player of the year, just edging out Michael Beasley, but certainly beating SN's own pick, Tyler Hansbrough.) Let's compare:

My team of Freshman 10:Kevin Love, Michael Beasley, Eric Gordon, Derrick Rose, Jerryd Bayless, James Harden, Dante Green, OJ Mayo, Anthony Randolph, DeAndre Jordan. That group could make up 8 of the first 10 players taken in the 2008 NBA Draft.

(Just to illustrate the crazy depth of this freshman class, consider a few of the guys I left on the bench: Kyle Singler, Patrick Patterson, Russell Westbrook, Davon Jefferson, Nick Calathes, Jonny Flynn and probably a bunch I'm forgetting.)

This freshman class is very good. But, I would take the Soph - Senior team head to head.

A comparison that might be more appropriate are the freshman against any other class (but that is flawed because of the early entry guys).

A better comparison, and one that you should have used since you called this the greatest ever, is a comparison against every other freshman class. But, you might have to at least address the early entry guys who would have been part of that class -- just to be fair.

5 on 5, last year's freshman class would win, but that class didn't go 10 strong (+) the way this one does. But, I would say the class of 2004/05 would have been MUCH better, except 8 of those guys were drafted instead -- including Dwight Howard.

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DanShanoff.com is a sports-blog spin-off of my long-time ESPN.com column, "The Daily Quickie." Anchored by an early-morning post of must-know topics, the blog is updated frequently throughout the day with new posts and user comments.